


Quiet

by Odamaki



Series: The Sherlexicon [31]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Dogs, Fluff, Gardens & Gardening, Happy Ending, Love, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Moving On, Physical Disability, The world is OK, Unrequited Love, Wedding Fluff, everyone is happy, finding happiness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-19
Updated: 2017-01-22
Packaged: 2018-05-27 16:55:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6292453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Odamaki/pseuds/Odamaki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From a prompt on Tumblr: <i> At John’s wedding Sholto asks about his therapist and John is like GREAT VERY HELPFUL GLOWING REVIEWS, John is obviously trying to convince Sholto to seek some kind of professional mental health treatment </i><i>So after John’s wedding Sholto finally does, because he almost let someone murder him at John Watson’s wedding </i><i>And after months and months of one-on-one Sholto finally joins a veteran’s support group, and that’s where he meets him, a man with quiet eyes and a prosthetic leg who insists on calling him Major out of respect. </i><br/>___</p><p> </p><p>  <b>COMPLETED. </b></p><p> </p><p>See the original post by clicking <a href="http://watsonshoneybee.tumblr.com/post/141311852679/odamakilock-vanetti-watsonshoneybee-at"> HERE </a> and on tumblr you can find me as <a href="http://odamakilock.tumblr.com">Odamakilock</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 44- Quiet

**Author's Note:**

  * For [darcylindbergh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/darcylindbergh/gifts).



**44: Quiet**

They both move awkwardly; a miss-match of limbs progressing, insect-like, down the hall to the meeting room; the step-step-click-step of feet and the brush and swing of three arms only. 

  
The man with one leg holds the door for him, Sholto placing a palm on the glass above his head to hold it open while he regains his balance and moves inside. They sit next to one another by silent agreement even though at this stage they’ve exchanged nothing more than a nod. 

  
They introduce themselves one at a time around the hub of the councillor, and they talk. Sholto doesn’t say much, though he listens, and that’s nearly as good. The man with one leg speaks only briefly, and only to offer support. He’s been here a while, Sholto thinks. Maybe he’s run out of things to say. 

  
Afterwards, balancing coffee cups on narrow surfaces around the room, the man says, “You’re a major, aren’t you?”

Sholto, who has only introduced himself as ‘James’, feels uncomfortable. “Technically,” he admits. 

“Then you are,” the man says simply, in a way that brooks no argument. It irks Sholto. 

“I don’t use it anymore.”

“May I?” 

Sholto touches his coffee to his lips and frowns; is this part of the group therapy? Owning your past and your identity or some such, or perhaps this is something the other man has been told to work on. He has no answers to the situation and in the end he doesn’t refuse. 

“Major,” the other man says before he leaves, offering him a hand. A heartbeat later, Sholto grasps it loosely. The man’s quiet sadness feels tangible between their palms and he regrets his earlier recalcitrance. 

“Next week,” he says. The man with one leg nods. 

“I’ll look forward to it.” 

\---

They meet at the group and as time passes, cautiously expand their involvement to coffee shops and cafes where they pass the hours in mutual solitude. Once, when their usual haunt is too noisy and busy for the clutter in their heads, Sholto suggests The Crown. 

  
“I can’t drink,” the quiet man tells him. The corners of his eyes wrinkle in self-abashment. “I do it too well.” 

“I’m on medication,” Sholto says, to smooth things over. They sit on chill benches in the park instead, closer than ever before, and watch other people function in daily life, with distant frustration. 

\---

Some days Sholto is brusque, irritable and nervous. Other days the quiet man doesn’t talk at all, slipping down into some other place inside his own being where no one else can reach. It is fortunate that they rarely coincide. The quiet man teaches him how to play backgammon; Sholto props a book up on the table and plays cards one-handed from behind it. They nettle each other often, bleeding spite from fears and angers wholly unconnected with coffee shop pastimes and somehow manage to never take it personally.  

People stare, sometimes. It sends cold creeps up Sholto’s spine. The quiet man never reacts. He turns as smooth and blank as plastic, and just as meaninglessly polite. It riles Sholto like nothing else can. He dislikes people looking at him, and the irrational shame their faces make him feel. He cannot tolerate their blaze attitude to the crutches. 

In a crowded cafe, a woman moved them once. Not far, not out of reach, but she’d handled them to manouvre past without a second thought or a single comment. 

“Put them back,” Sholto had barked.

“I haven’t touched them,” she’d said, woolish with surprise. Her hand was still on the grips. 

“I’ll move them,” the quiet man said, laying a hand by hers. “It’s alright, James.” His foot- the real one- touched Sholto’s bristling shin under the table. He’d smiled and the woman had squeezed away, shaking her head. 

“It’s disrespectful!” 

“They’ve got no idea what it’s like, Major,” the quiet man had said, looking down at the backgammon board. He’d smiled faintly. “Thank you.” 

\---

The group breaks up for a few weeks in the summer. They’ve made progress in as much as the councillor is concerned, and they’ve met the requisite tick boxes for everyone to be sure they’ll survive a little while without it. They all have their individual therapists and emergency contacts anyway. There will be e-mails. 

Sholto feels despondent about it. It’s a relief to know he won’t have to make the long commute into town every Wednesday, but in spite of himself he’ll miss the structure to his week. Against his wishes, it’s become something to look forward to. 

“Keep in touch,” the quiet man tells him as they shuffle around putting the chairs back in order. 

“Come to dinner,” Sholto blurts. He's been thinking it for a long while and never asked; he didn’t intend to say it now but it was forefront in his mind and just slipped out.

The quiet man looks pleasantly surprised. 

“Major.” 

“I- well, you’re welcome to visit. It’s nice in the summer,” Sholto blusters, embarrassed. “The garden’s good.” 

“Thank you. I’ll accept.” 

Hardly words to dizzy anyone, but Sholto takes them home with him rattling around his chest and repeating in his head like he’s rehearsing declensions. He accepted, he accepts, he has accepted, he has been accepted. 

The house is typically tidy and there’s not much to be done in preparation other than fret, which Sholto does thoroughly, harrying the staff until the nurse tells him he’s putting his blood pressure up and to pack it in. 

He sits in the conservatory instead, smokes a rare cigarette and waits. 

\----

The quiet man comes in the afternoon and stays. The weather could not be kinder as they trudge the boundaries of Sholto’s realm. He hadn’t been lying; the garden’s are good. The quiet man breathes deep and by the time they’ve passed around the goldfish pond and crunching over gravel to the door again, they’ve sloughed their tension like old skins. 

Now and then, Sholto’s noticed, the quiet man has a devilish sense of humour that slips through his veneer. It does so now, passing the newspaper back and forth while they catch their wind again, buoyed up on tea and companionship. When he laughs, his eyes fold up at the corners, taking too much of Sholto with them.   
He finds himself smiling wider than before, a shivery sort of thing; ill-practiced, but something that he cannot help. 

“It’s good,” the quiet man says of the house and the dinner. Sholto feels his own frail humanity reflected in the other man; they share a wry joke about the glassware brimming with nothing but fruit spritzer, and it is, Sholto realises. It’s good. 

They sit in his office, not the living room, when the sun dies down finally below the eaves. It’s snug as they hog the armchairs and talk guns and dogs. Sober, they talk of people, and talking of people in turn leads them to finally talk about the war. They share their similar disgusts towards operations, mutual respects, mutual experiences. Other people, Sholto thinks, talk about their school days. 

The room darkens and warms as the fire banks down to hot embers. Neither of them minds the heat; they’ve found a topic that engrosses them both: themselves. 

The quiet man’s seen the photos of the wedding. He doesn’t remember the news story. Sholto tells him. 

The quiet man says, “He didn’t want to keep it secret anymore,” and Sholto knows he’s not talking about himself, or John Watson or Sherlock Holmes. 

“I’m sorry,” Sholto says, and means it. “It’s difficult.” 

“Did you ever think, ‘I can handle the bombs, and the dust and the fucking pasta bag meals, but if I tell one more lie, I might as well put a gun between my teeth’?”

“I never had anyone like that,” Sholto replies. “But...” The charcoaled logs chink as they settle. The quiet man’s hand is warm and dry against his own. “Perhaps if i’d.. there could have been. I won’t ever know now.” The photo frame is already tilted face down where they’d left it.   

“It made sense, lying in Afghanistan. I do understand it; he understood it too- it wasn’t needed out there. But when you have to keep pretending in your own home...” It’s as plaintive as Sholto’s ever heard him before. 

Sholto turns his head to look at him, their curled fingers resting on the truncated end of the other man’s thigh. They’ve both left parts of themselves in other places, with other people, and brought home too much of the conflict. Sholto feels something slip from his shoulders; he’s always going to regret not bringing John home in some form or other, but it’s done and it’s past, and here’s something different. 

And if he had to pass it all over to someone, he can’t think of anyone more appropriate than Holmes. The man looked right through him and still saved his life. He would understand. 

“It wastes a lot of time,” Sholto says, finally, looking at the man in front of him. He has faint marks from the sun on the delicate skin under his eyes, a silvery nick on his jaw. The quiet man turns his head too. 

The touch of their lips is silent.  


	2. 47- Roseate

**47: Roseate**

_**Roseate; (adj)  pink** _

_**___** _

__

‘Dinner’ gradually becomes whole weekends; tentative kissing, separate beds. “I trust you,” the quiet man tells him, carefully easing to the edge of Sholto’s mattress, “But nights are still a bit… ugly.”

“I understand,” Sholto says, mixed with disappointment and relief that he doesn’t have to reveal his own unconscious weaknesses just yet. They’ve seen each other’s livid scars; they respect the pain that caused them and the deeper suffering that lingers. It gives them excuse beyond excuse to sit up late and long into the night, drowsing and swapping touches. They’ve yet to work out the logistics of a full physical relationship, but this satisfies them well enough.

“I haven’t acted like this in years,” Sholto comments, “Possibly never.”

“I don’t think I believe that,” the quiet man replies, but his eyes are lost in a smile.

Weekends become a second toothbrush in the cabinet and a spare towel that now has an owner. It becomes a rotation of two particular mugs on the tea tray and a subscription to an extra newspaper so they don’t quibble over the crossword. It becomes the lack of sesame in Sholto’s diet and the use of aspirin in higher volumes than Sholto could manage alone. It becomes mutually assigned seats in the study and two sets of scuff-marks on the hearth rug where one and a half pairs of slippers bump at each other’s heels before dove-tailing.

Eventually it becomes home.

They edit the living spaces in practical ways, and figure out how three arms and three legs can muddle together in one close space. Balancing perfectly, the quiet man runs the clippers up the nape of Sholto’s neck and sweeps the trimmings away.

“Is that alright?”

The sunlight outside is buttermilk white, and the first sparrows are arguing over nesting space in the vines covering the wall. Sholto runs his good hand over his scalp and then up to the quiet man’s cheek. “It’ll do,” he says, to make him laugh. They’re both too wounded to fall under the spell of a rose-tints, but the world does somehow seem more translucent, and undeniably more bearable.

The bed in the second bedroom becomes just a refuge for the bad days; they stock it up with the things they don’t need and would rather forget and as time passes a welcome decay sets in, crumbling all the debris at the edges. By the second spring the rest of the house, large as it is, becomes too small to contain them any more; they’ve gotten too loud and bold.

The quiet man orders new prosthetics and finds his feet again on the morning lanes. The taut scarring prevents Sholto keeping up, but another surgery brings him back his shoulder, and time might bring back more. He walks instead, in the hour or so before sunset and between them they exhaust the scrap of piebald fur the quiet man finds one day and can’t bear to give up.

She lounges in their bed on Sunday mornings. The quiet man leans on the door of the ensuite, towelling his shoulders.

“She’s spoilt,” he says, fond. Sholto massages the spaniel’s ears and she snuffles into the crook of his neck, a hot stretch of fur over his bare chest. He grins. The dog drums her tail against the bedspread, and the quiet man joins them. The dog is ousted to the floor, the mattress creaks, they blink bright pink patches from their vision where the sun streams in at the window, and everything tastes of toothpaste.

In summer, the quiet man surprises him with a car, and the steady insistence that they use it. They creep out of their castle for the first time at dawn, feeling exposed, and drive under a slow-coralline sky all the way to the coast. The dog plasters herself to the crack in the window in ecstasy and after a while Sholto forces himself to do the same. The air buffets his face and steals the breath from his lungs, sears across his cheeks and refreshes him. The quiet man finds his hand across the gear stick.

“Alright?”

“Fine,” Sholto says, squeezing his fingers before he has to return them to the wheel. They blow past banks of speedwell, and watch the distant blue ribbon of water grow wider.

They keep to the less populous areas; fend for themselves as much as possible with a thermos and a blanket tucked among the marron grass. The quiet man limps along the quay and strikes up polite conversation with each small smack that comes into harbour; exchanges a note for the contents of a bucket. They sit on the sand and boil seawater in a billycan, using a spanner from the car maintenance kit to crack the blushing shells open. They pick out the meat a little at a time with penknives until there’s nothing left but pearly rubble. It’s fiddly work, and the quiet man does most of it; dishing over Sholto’s share on a plate of brown bread, and when the bread runs out, directly to his palm, and then his tongue.

They drive home under flaring orange and indigo clouds, scoured fresh by the salt and the sand. The dog snores on the backseat.

“Enjoy yourself?” the quiet man asks. “You’ve caught the sun.”

Sholto feels the faintly tender stretch of the skin across his nose and shrugs contentedly.

“I’m in the pink,” he says.


	3. 48- Share

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ran across some other musings on Tumblr, which I can't find again now, which were along the lines of 'Imagine Sholto learning that John and Sherlock had gotten together' and also, Quiet Eyes and gardens. 
> 
> So this is something not exactly that, but a bit like it.

**48- Share**

Sholto reads John’s email over breakfast, chews slowly on his toast until it goes dry in his mouth, scrolls back and reads it again.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

Sholto puts the phone down. The quiet man pauses, fork half-raised to his mouth, and looks at him. Sholto is not the most expressive of people any more than the quiet man is very verbal, but over time he’s learnt to read the nuances of Sholto’s face. His expression troubles him.

“James.”

Sholto swallows his toast. Looks guilty. “John’s found someone.”

The quiet man knows the name and the history; Sholto’s always been honest about it even if he hasn’t liked to go into detail. He’s seen the blog, heard the news stories and heard Sholto’s version of the story behind the scenes. They’ve never met, though the quiet man has an impression of a man he’d probably take a shine to if John hadn’t had the dubious honour of being the Previous One.

“The detective?”

“Yes.”

“…Good for him.”

“I know,” Sholto says, “I’m happy for him.”

The quiet man brushes off his hands and folds his hands together on the table. “You’re not.”

Sholto leans back, laughs humourlessly to dispel tension. “I am,” he insists. “He’s been alone too long; they should have worked all this out years ago.”

“But you’re not happy about it.”

There’s a silence, which grows and finds a place between them, unwelcome at the table.

Sholto reaches over to try and take the quiet man’s hand. Gently, it evades him.

“I’m over it,” Sholto says, firmly. “I am not caught up in John Watson any more.”

The quiet man gets up from the table, hops free of the chair and out of Sholto’s reach. “I need to go and dig that potato bed,” he says.

He leaves. Sholto sits and stews. Finally he thumps his hand on the table in frustration and goes to walk the dog.

—

They give each other space. Neither wants a real fight, and both know that the other will take time to sort out their thoughts and approach the issue calmly.

Sholto takes the spaniel out for a couple of hours, and visits the estate manager. Then he takes the spaniel home in disgrace where he spends thirty minutes scouring her with a bucket of warm water and shampoo until she no longer smells so strongly of badger faeces.

He shoos her out into the garden to dry out. She rolls exuberantly on the lawn, weaves through his legs. Hearing the quiet man whistle, she gallops off to find him, and Sholto follows.

The quiet man leans down to ruffle her ears. He wipes the damp fur off on his jeans and passes a small smile over towards Sholto.

“Come and see,” he offers, holding out a hand.

Sholto takes it, though he doesn’t need help climbing in amongst the raised beds. The quiet man’s been busy. The last of the rubble has been shifted out and fresh topsoil dug in. Sholto can smell the wet earth; it mingles with the perfume of the lilac bushes, and when he steps closer, he can smell the warm, biscuity smell of the quiet man himself.

“I’m sorry,” the quiet man says. He leans in when Sholto slides an arm around his wait. “I don’t know why I get jealous.”

“I meant it.” Sholto squeezes a hand into his jumper, as a sign of forgiveness. “I’m over John.”

“I know; it just bothers me to see him affect you like that.”

“It wasn’t that,” Sholto says. He’s been thinking about what it was all morning. “I just wish I’d ever had a chance to tell him.”

The quiet man looks at him, reading his face.

“I can never tell him now that he’s found someone, and I could never say anything before. Simply… I regret the secrecy. Not just with John… years of never saying anything to anyone. It upset me.”

“I’m sorry.”

Sholto turns over a clod of earth with the toe of his boot, disturbing a worm, and for a while they talk of other things. They plan the vegetable patch, talk about the previous years successes and failures in that area, dry hands held palm to palm and swinging loose between them.

“It’ll look good when it’s done,” Sholto comments.

“It’s a start,” the quiet man agrees.

The alien crowns of rhubarb are already breaking the surface in the other beds and a robin scolds them from the wall before puffing up and dropping down to investigate the quiet mans handiwork. “He’s bold.”

They pass back into the established part of the garden, put in a lifetime before by Sholto’s grandparents and altered only half-heartedly. They leave this section to the gardener, who has more skill and patience to worry about delicate perennials and landscaping. One day they might take it over, but they haven’t the energy just yet. The hellebores in their thick clumps are Sholto’s favourite, varying from soft pink right through purple to black. The quiet man likes the lily of the valley.

“My mother liked it,” he says simply. “And you can always smell it before you can see it.”

They return to the house, taking turns to admonish the spaniel first for digging then for barking then for trying to rush the house with muddy paws. The quiet man picks her up, wriggling under one arm and she washes his chin. “We should get a beagle next,” he jokes. “I hear they’re easy to handle.”

They take turns rinsing their hands and removing boots. Sholto, stiff from walking, braces his back against the wall and lets the quiet man haul a wellington off for him. The quiet man wobbles, drops it on the floor and then surprises him with a kiss.

“Oh.”

“Tea?”

The quiet man moves towards the door to the rest of the house and Sholto stops him by saying his name. He looks back, questioningly.

“You do understand… about John. Don’t you?”

The quiet man looks a touch abashed. “Of course I do.” He opens the door to let the scrabbling spaniel go ahead of them and then holds out his hand for Sholto’s again. The house is already warmed through and from the kitchen they can hear the clatter and smell of dinner under way.

“It was just the last thing I was worried about. John not being ok. I didn’t mind it so much when I wasn’t happy but…” He stops until he has the other man’s eye. “But I’m happy now, and I hated the idea of telling him. Like I was rubbing it in.”

“You’re sentimental,” the quiet man says, not unkindly. “And you’re allowed to be happy. Do you think he’s happy?”

“I know. And yes.”

“Then write to John,” the quiet man says, “Congratulate him… tell them about us. Maybe he was worrying the same thing.”

Part of Sholto doubts it; it’s one of John’s failings. He agrees, however. He should write. It would feel good to tell someone about the quiet man and his garden and the spaniel. It would be nice to write to someone about something that wasn’t a litany of medical treatments and how he has maintained the status quo. ‘I’ve got something to share,’ Sholto thinks, with surprise. It must show on his face because the quiet man begins to smile; one that comes out of his eyes first and only finds his mouth much later.

“Who do you want to tell?” Sholto asks. They’ve not touched much on the subject before; both understanding how intrinsically private a person the other is without needing to be told. It’s been an unspoken agreement that disclosing their relationship fell under a need-to-know basis only. The staff are aware, of course, though it’s never mentioned. Therapists. The estate manager. That’s all.

The quiet man considers this, settling into his side of the sofa in the snug. Their hips touch as Sholto takes the other side, the spaniel vying for a lap. Sholto automatically reaches for the newspaper and lets him think; the clock ticks and it’s comfortable. The spaniel snores. In his head, Sholto composes a letter that he won’t have time to complete before dinner; it holds too much. He’s almost forgotten his question when the quiet man shifts in his seat and comes out with his conclusion.

“Anyone who’ll listen,” he says.


	4. 55- Aisle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The quiet man has a gift.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't plan to continue this verse but I had a rotten week and spent ages sat on the bench at my parent's house and it reminded me of the quiet man digging his garden, so this happened. Enjoy!

The quiet man always gets up first in the mornings, as soon as the sun breaks the horizon at about four thirty. He leaves Sholto to take his time, slipping from the room and treading away down the stairs, his running jacket over his elbow. Sholto rolls into the warm empty side of the bed and hogs it until he can face the tedium of doing his stretches and the endless chore of rubbing lotion into his scars to keep them soft. 

By anyone else’s standards, he still gets up early. He finds the dogs panting and hoovering around the kitchen floor, spattered with water from their bowls, and stoops to cosset them. The beagle is his particular devotee these days. 

He rinses their food bowls from breakfasts long since licked clean, and pushes his feet into a pair of old moccasins left by the backdoor for this express purpose. “Where is he then?” he says to the spaniel, who becomes one long plumy wiggle of happiness. “Where’s that man? Where is he? Sic ‘im!” 

She barks and streaks out the back door, the beagle baying at her heels and then quickly becoming distracted. 

Sholto still makes the tea one handed, but with the dogs out from underfoot, he focusses himself and wraps the fingers of each hand around a separate mug. He still spills some, but he can manage to lift and carry one in each hand to the bench at the end of the garden. It feels like a triumph every morning.

The quiet man’s been working on the far back garden for a year now. There’s a shed and a new greenhouse; the vegetable beds are established and the trees he’s planted are putting out new branches. The latest addition is in the form of two long beds either side of a path up the middle. For flowers, the quiet man says. 

He comes over as Sholto approaches, his hands surprisingly clean when he reaches out to take his mug. They sit on the bench, the dogs tumbling each other in the dust. 

“Not done much this morning,” Sholto comments. 

“I watered a few things in the greenhouse,” the quiet man replies, balancing his mug on the arm of the bench. “Mostly I’ve just been walking around taking stock of the feel of the place.” 

“Oh?” 

“Things that might need work in the future, projects to pick up some day. Things like that.” 

“Well, you’ve done a good job so far,” Sholto says, thinking of when it was all weeds, rubble and bare earth. These days he can’t remember the last time they actually bought vegetables. “What were you thinking of doing next?” 

“I thought maybe we could plan it together,” the quiet man says. “Now we’ve got everything laid out, I feel like I can see where it’s going, can’t you?” 

Sholto regards the garden. He admits that he thinks he can. It’s only a year, and the garden’s still raw at the edges but it only takes a bit of imagination to fill the gaps; to see where the trees will fill out and the timbers will weather in. 

“What do you want?” the quiet man asks. Sholto shifts one leg; the beagle is making his foot go to sleep with her weight over his instep, and shakes his head. 

“Things can just go on as they are; that’s good enough for me.” 

The quiet man pauses and it’s a pause that makes Sholto look at him, because it’s rather unlike him. He’s surprised to see him looking so intent. The quiet man shifts to the edge of bench in order to pivot and face him. He’s going to say something, Sholto realises, and almost without thinking, he puts his mug down to listen. 

Instead, the quiet man puts his hand into the pocket of his jeans and pulls something out, pressing it into Sholto’s empty palm. It’s hard and slightly warm from the other man’s body, and rests there as the quiet man curls his hand around to support Sholto’s from underneath. ‘Why’s he giving me a pebble?’ Sholto wonders before registers what it is. 

“If you can forgive me for not going down on one knee…” 

The quiet man waits to see if Sholto’s going to say something- his mouth has fallen open- and when he doesn’t he prompts:

“I was wondering if you’d like to make it official.” 

It should feel heavy, Sholto is thinking. It should be weighing down his hand and perhaps it is, because his hand is unsteady and without the quiet man’s beneath his, he fears it would have already spilled from his palm. 

“Don’t let me drop it.” 

The quiet man’s eyes search his face and, ever so slightly, he smiles. “I won’t. How about this, for safe keeping?” 

Against tradition, he slides it onto Sholto’s finger with the man’s palm up, but it fits on all the same. Sholto curls his fingers up so it can’t fall off. He wants to say something, but there’s an embarrassment of emotion welling up his throat and it’s making it impossible. 

“James?” 

He nods, instead. One of his clipped little up-down-back-to-centre, like he’s responding to an order, except he hopes it’s clear that this is of his own free will. 

“I’m sorry. I didn’t want to make a fuss; I was worried it might be overwhelming.” 

Sholto somehow manages to clear his throat. “It is overwhelming.” He can feel it against his skin, warming up between his fingers, the foreign hardness of it against the ball of his thumb inside his fist. 

“When did you…?” The hitch in his voice alerts the beagle, who promptly tries to squirm onto the bench between them.

“When I started digging those,” the quiet man says, pointing out the two long flowerbeds, talking over her whining. “I had the idea of putting a trellis over them to make an aisle, and then it made me think that if we move this bench, there’s just enough space for an officiant and a couple of witnesses.” He looks into Sholto’s face. “Or we can just get another ring and do it ourselves and consider it done.” The beagle howls. 

He pauses to smooth back the beagle’s ears “Shh, Beano. Shut up.”

Sholto puts a hand on her collar to hold the beagle in the quiet man’s lap, and leans over to kiss him. The spaniel bumps around their ankles, the beagle yaps and desperately cranes upward to lick at their chins. They pull apart laughing. 

“You’ve got no bloody sense of romance,” Sholto complains to the dogs, ruffling the beagle’s head and pushing her off their laps. “Go on, piss off. Fetch!” He has nothing to throw so he mimes it, and the beagle hares off anyway, the spaniel following, vanishing into the stands of vegetables. 

Sholto kisses him again quickly before they discover his ruse, but the dogs crash away through the broccoli, the beagle tracking who knows what and the spaniel loyally following. Their mugs of tea stop steaming as they cool, and the tiny sun-trap patio under their feet gets warm with the morning sun. Distantly, a seagull mews. 

The gold of the ring gleams when Sholto places both hands on either side of the quiet man’s face and kisses him. 

The garden grows.


	5. 57 - Efflorescent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _The quiet man plants bulbs at the end of the summer. Mysterious things, palm-sized and finger-sized and tiny pearly fairy beads in dozens. He won’t tell Sholto what they are._

**57: Efflorescent**

The quiet man plants bulbs at the end of the summer. Mysterious things, palm-sized and finger-sized and tiny pearly fairy beads in dozens. He won’t tell Sholto what they are.

“Wait and see,” he says, chuckling, “Trust me, it’ll be worth it.”

Sholto has no doubt of that, but he’d still like to know. The trellis goes up in the autumn, with what look to Sholto’s amateur eye like bundles of twigs planted at the bottom of each pillar. More of them, which given the thorns he suspects are roses, appear at intervals in the two long flower beds.

The gate goes up in January. Sholto raps on it, frowning, and the quiet man smiles.

“What’s this for?”

“No entry,” the quiet man says, kissing him. “It’s a surprise, which means you need to keep out.”

Sholto eyes the gate with doubt, an old and well-familiar feeling of paranoia rising in him. “Can’t you just tell me?” he asks. What he means is, he’s afraid that the quiet man is planning a gesture, not unwelcome, but the kindness of which Sholto is unprepared for as always. He worries, and he knows it’s not a rational worry, that he won’t have anything good enough to return in kind.

‘Don’t give me something I can’t reciprocate.’

“I’ve always wanted to do this,” the quiet man says, hands on Sholto’s shoulders, face lowered. “It’s for both of us. May I?”

Sholto hasn’t the heart to say no.

—

He remains obsessed with knowing what’s behind the gate, however. It’s a solid gate, with no gaps and the quiet man takes care to keep it shut behind him. The dogs side with Sholto on the matter, and join him in lurking around when the quiet man has vanished inside. Sholto appreciates the solidarity, but also wishes they weren’t such a dead giveaway when he’s trying to sneak up to listen at the gate. The beagle scratches the wood and howls.

Sometime in spring, the quiet man asks, “Are you going to have a best man?”

“Are you?”

The quiet man nods. “If you are. I’m going to ask my brother.”

Sholto has never met the man, but the quiet man explains his brother lives at the other end of the country. He describes him as a quiet accountant who knows his brother well. “We’ve got nothing in common,” the quiet man concludes, “But we get on.”

The remains of the quiet man’s guest list runs to his mother, another veteran from the support group they met at, two army friends who won’t attend as they’re still on active service, and his parents.

Or alternatively, no one.

Sholto draws patterns on the table cloth with his thumbnail and thinks. He has no siblings and his parents are both gone. His own guest-list has only two real names on it; John and the detective. It’s an awkward little list. In the abstract there’s every sense in inviting the men who saved his life. It’s just complicated by the fact that Sholto is the man John loved and who he would never say anything to, and Sherlock is the man to whom he did. More to the point, they’ve never all four met in the current situation.

Sholto’s afraid they won’t get on. He’s afraid they will. He’s nervous of what Sherlock will see- the man sees too much- and Sholto can’t bear the idea that this old dusty longing could rear up again, be noticed, and put a smudge on John’s present happiness.

Mutually the conversation moves onto something easier- they invite the groundskeeper, and a neighbour who collaborates with them on the small-holding side of the estate business. Since the quiet man moved in, they settled on one housekeeper and one cook and one nurse, instead of the constant roundabout of staff. They invite them too, on the premise it will be another working day anyway.

—

Sholto waits until the month before the settled date before calling John. He can’t keep putting it off and they’re in the safe zone where it can be considered enough notice to be fair warning, and short enough notice that John might have something else planned that day, and refuse. Perhaps he’ll be on holiday, Sholto hopes. He hopes more that he won’t.

“Hello?”

“John. It’s James.”

He hears the man swallow, tea maybe, or a bit of late breakfast, and then the background grows quieter.

“Hello,” John says, pleased. “How are you? What can I do for you?”

“I’m well. How are you?”

“Good,” John answers. “Really good. Doing well.” There’s the distant click of a door. “Everything alright?”

“Yes, I was just calling to ask what you’re doing this summer?　June, specifically. June 21st.”

“Nothing, I don’t think,” John says, and Sholto’s hopes rise against his wishes. ‘Be my friend,’ he wills. ‘Let’s please just be friends.’

“We’re not that good on planned things,” John goes on. “It’s more that something crops up and we just run with it. Why?”

“We’re… having a bit of a party,” Sholto says, acutely aware that this is the most ludicrous way of phrasing it he could possibly contrive. He leans and puts his hand on the warm back of the spaniel. She licks his fingers and wiggles into his hand.

“A party?” John almost laughs. “Alright, I’m listening.”

“Nothing big, just immediate friends and family. Early dinner. You can stay over if the trip’s a bit far, or drive home after. We’re not going to be drinking.”

“Sounds like the bash of the year,” John says, amused. “What’s it in aid of?”

“Well, there’d be a bit more to it. I’d like you to do something, if you’re willing. I don’t suppose you’ve got a suit that needs airing?”

“James?”

The spaniel’s claws dig into his trousers as she forces her way into his lap, thrumming with adoration. She presses the top of her smooth head to his chin.

“I’m getting married,” Sholto says, and it makes him smile. This old chair makes him smile suddenly, and his dog and the slippers the beagle has chewed the toe out of, and the dip in the chair opposite and the knowledge that somewhere behind a gate there is a quiet man working in a garden for something they’ve wanted for so long. “I find myself in need of a best man, John.”

“Oh,” John says, light with surprise. “My god. Yes. Yes, absolutely. Of course. My god, James, congratulations.”

“We’re not making a big thing of it.”

“I’d be honoured,” John says, with uniform in his voice. “What do you need?”

After he hangs up and limps into the kitchen, carting the spaniel in his arms who is ecstatic at being babied. The quiet man looks up from the newspaper.

“He’s coming,” Sholto says.

—

These days the space behind the gate has a faint perfume to it. Sholto sits on the bench on the other side of the wall and waits for the quiet man to emerge, and when he does, he smells of cut grass and earth and lavender. They always kiss.

“Tell me what it looks like,” Sholto asks, eaten up with curiosity.

“You’ll see,” is all the quiet man will say.

—

When the day itself arrives, Sholto is outwardly organised calm and inwardly a boiling wreck. He ameliorates the panic by focusing on the minutiae of the day’s proceedings and, as the direct result of this, making a tremendous nuisance of himself.

The cook politely, but firmly, removes him from her kitchen. The housekeeper has vanished with the quiet man behind the gate and as Sholto has precisely no control over the details of the venue, he fusses around the ground floor of the house with the dogs until John arrives.

“Aren’t you ready yet?” John says, after he’s hugged him. “What needs doing?”

“Oh, plenty. Excuse me, there’s the officiator’s car-“ Sholto scuttles away, relieved. Sherlock slips past him in the background to John’s shoulder, a striking figure in a well-cut suit. He murmurs something into John’s ear and John just smiles and squeezes his arm.

John steps up and ingratiates himself into the conversation with the officiator. “Pleasure to meet you. Um, I’ve got to take this groom away, because he’s wearing slipper with no toes in them, but I did bring a wedding planner with me, who’ll help out.”

John indicates behind him, to where Sherlock is standing, hands behind his back. “He’s surprisingly capable,” John adds for Sholto’s benefit. “Come on.”

__

They smoke in the bathroom with the window open, like naughty school boys, while John dresses.

“Nervous?” John asks.

“No. Yes. I just want to get on with it.”

“You’ll be fine,” John states, tugging the ends of the silk into line. He ashes his cigarette in the sink and then puts it out only half smoked. “It’s alright, finish yours. I’ve never liked the taste.”

“No one likes the taste,” Sholto points out. He’s sitting on the edge of the bath, holding onto it for grim death. John just chuckles. He drops his hands from his tie and lifts his jacket from the back of the bathroom door, slipping it on.

“I didn’t think you’d bring dress,” Sholto admits.

“I wasn’t going to, and then I thought actually, it’s the most expensive suit I’ve ever owned, I might as well get some use out of it. I even bought a new hackle. Mine got bent.”

This raises a smile from Sholto. “I’m honoured.”

“So you should be. Go and get dressed.”

Afterwards, John passes him his beret and watches as Sholto sets it correctly on his head. “Now we match.”

“Now we match,” Sholto agrees, looking at their reflections in the mirror. John’s hand presses the middle of his back. Considering the suit once nearly killed him (or saved his life; it depends on his mood how he chooses to look back on it), wearing it makes him feel calmer. It should, with John in uniform again, feel like a step back, and yet it feels new.

“Just stay away from the spaniel in that,” Sholto says, gesturing to John’s pale suit. “She sheds.”

—

The gate is open.

“When you’re ready,” John says. There’s not going to be any music. They’re just going to walk in and meet in the middle of the trellis, at the round patch of paving where the official and the others are waiting. Sholto hasn’t seen inside the place for half a year. He can’t imagine what it looks like.

It’s white.

The vegetables are gone, or hidden, Sholto can’t tell. Maybe they’re on the other side of the trellis, but even that is hidden under a foam of clean white flowers. He forgets to march, he’s so taken in. Behind him, he hears John’s soft breath of amazement, which is nothing compared to what Sholto feels. John never saw it as rough earth. It wasn’t done for John.

There’s lily of the valley, he knows. The quiet man’s favourite. He can’t smell it, or see it but it’s there. It must be. It’s the wrong season for hellebores, but there are summer roses instead. They swarm the trellis in robust limbs, the gaps filled in with clematis. There are things he can name, and things he cannot. Delphiniums, a snowy army, reaching for the sky. Lower down, columbines springing up from cushions of green foliage like so many hatpins. Silvery grasses. It’s beautiful.

The men in pale suits, fitted for hotter weather, seem to pass into the garden fade. As he comes up the aisle between the trellises, the only thing that stands out from the green and white is the blue of the quiet man’s uniform, and the steadiness of his gaze.

It’s perhaps just as well they have prescribed words and actions to perform. Sholto has half an inclination to tell him off, to tell him it’s wonderful and kiss him before he’s told to. Instead he stands and echoes the official words and it takes so little time considering how long the moment has been in arriving.

He doesn’t notice the applause, muffled by dress gloves. He doesn’t notice John reach for his own partner’s hand, or the fact that Sherlock has one of the dogs snuggled inside his jacket. He is blind to the faces of strangers in the family he has now, it seems, become part of.

Sholto lifts his weaker arm and picks a petal from a blue lapel, and kisses his husband, a quiet man.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the end of this little series, I think. I don't feel like there's anything outstanding left and I want to leave them all happy, in a garden in a gentle place. Thank you for reading. 
> 
> -Odamaki


End file.
